“Exclusive: Local election chief threatened by Republican leader seeking illegal access to voting equipment”

chicanery, fraudulent fraud squad

Reuters:

A local Republican Party leader in North Carolina threatened to get a county elections director fired or have her pay cut unless she helped him gain illegal access to voting equipment, the state elections board told Reuters.

The party official, William Keith Senter, sought evidence to support false conspiracy theories alleging the 2020 election was rigged against former U.S. President Donald Trump. The previously unreported incident is part of a national effort by Trump supporters to audit voting systems to bolster the baseless stolen-election claims.

Senter, chair of the Surry County Republican Party, told elections director Michella Huff that he would ensure she lost her job if she refused his demand to access the county’s vote tabulators, the North Carolina State Board of Elections said in written responses to questions from Reuters. Senter was “aggressive, threatening, and hostile,” in two meetings with Huff, the state elections board said, citing witness accounts.

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“Judge: 3 Arizona candidates can stay on ballot”

Uncategorized

Tucson.com:

A judge will not bar three Arizona officials who allegedly were involved in some way in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot from running again for office.

In a 19-page ruling released Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury said private individuals have no legal right to enforce a provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars those who have engaged in “insurrection” from holding public office. He said only Congress can create such a law.

Coury also rejected a claim by Free Speech for People, which brought the lawsuits, that state election laws give them the right to challenge whether Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, is qualified to run for secretary of state and whether Congressmen Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs are legally entitled to seek another term in the U.S. House. He said those laws are designed solely to determine if candidates meet what is required under state law.

Finally, the judge said that the challengers waited too long to bring their claims.

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“OAN network agrees to settle defamation claims brought by election workers”

chicanery, fraudulent fraud squad

Oregon Live:

Two Georgia election workers agreed to settle defamation claims against a right-wing cable news channel, which they said falsely claimed they engaged in ballot fraud during the 2020 election, according to a court document filed Thursday.

Fulton County election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss sued One America News Network, its owners and its chief White House correspondent in December over debunked claims that the mother-and-daughter pair introduced suitcases of illegal ballots and committed other acts of fraud to try to alter the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia.

The lawsuit said the cable network, known as OAN, continued to accuse Freeman and Moss of wrongdoing even after Georgia election officials refuted the allegations. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, appeared frequently on the network and, along with OAN, “continued to publish and amplify the lie,” according to the suit filed in federal court in Washington.

According to a status report filed Thursday, Freeman and Moss met with the OAN parties on Tuesday for a “successful one-day mediation” and “agreed upon and signed a binding set of settlement terms that they anticipate memorializing in a formal settlement agreement.” Those terms were not disclosed.

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“Republicans Have Picked An Election Denier To Run Michigan’s Elections”

election subversion risk, fraudulent fraud squad

BuzzFeed:

Michigan Republicans endorsed Kristina Karamo, a first-time candidate who has spread lies about the 2020 election, to run all the state’s elections as the party’s candidate for secretary of state.

Karamo is one of at least 17 election deniers running this year to take over elections in 14 states, three of whom have the explicit backing of former president Donald Trump. Trump endorsed Karamo in September and featured her at a rally in Michigan earlier this month. She is the first to win her party’s endorsement for the job, but several others could clear that hurdle as primary election season gets underway.

The first-time candidate was endorsed by the Michigan Republican Party at its convention on Saturday; the state chooses candidates for several top offices by convention rather than by primary vote. The party will officially nominate Karamo in August, though the Detroit News reported that new rules make it tough, but possible, for another candidate to challenge her between now and then.

Karamo will attempt to unseat Democratic incumbent Jocelyn Benson, who has spent the last two years combatting disinformation about 2020 as secretary of state. Benson has compared the possibility of voters handing control of Michigan’s elections over to Karamo to “putting an arsonist in charge of the fire department.”

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